Desperately Seeking Steve
by Todd's Pet
Summary: My weird imagnation started thinking about AUs and how many me's might be out there - have any of them found Steve? That's how this little story of obsession was born...


Desperately Seeking Steve

You don't remember me, but I remember you.

I lie awake and try so hard not to think of you.

But who can decide what they dream?

And dream I do.

I believe in you.

I'll give up everything just to find you.

I have to be with you to live, to breathe...

You're taking over me.

[Taking Over Me by Evanescence]

"With respect, High Commander, why did he leave?"

He can see that she's trying hard not to be disrespectful but that she is somehow driven to ask, no matter what the risk. He understands that, over time, some humans can get quite attached to the wraith they serve, and so her question is not so much 'why did he leave?' but 'why did he leave without me?'

He answers her unspoken question. "As a worshipper you belong to me, your Commander, and you stay on my ship. If the wraith you have been allocated to is killed or re-posted, you will remain and be re-allocated." She hangs her head in despair and he almost feels sorry for her. "You do not know of any wraith on this entire ship you would be content to be re-allocated to?"

She shakes her head slowly and he can sense the tension in her jaw as she tries not to cry in front of him at the thought that her wraith might have disappeared because he had been killed.

"You do know that if you are not allocated as a personal worshipper you will be sent to the military corp?" he asks her. She nods once, her head still bowed. "And you understand that you will be expected to spy for us, even fight for us, and that life expectancy in the worshipper military corp is short?" She nods again. "And you would do this rather than go with another wraith?"

She lifts her head and meets his gaze and her eyes are filmed with a mixture of grief and defiance such that she does not need to answer him.

"Very well," he tells her and nods to the two drones that stand either side of her. They turn to escort her from his office. He watches her back as she leaves.

"By the way," he says casually, "He is not dead."

He smiles wryly as her spine straightens and her shoulders lift and he decides it might be interesting to watch this one and see what she does next.

oOo

He's just a TV character, she tells herself, and a completely made-up one at that. Fantasy, pure fantasy, that's all. And yet she's completely obsessed. It feels like the first throes of falling in love; she can't eat, she can't sleep, she can't think about anything else but him.

Every night she can't wait to get home and log onto her laptop to get her daily "dose" with like-minded people who understand her wraith fixation.

But it's not wraith in general – it's him in particular, the one they named Steve. She adores him, worships him, longs to be with him with every fibre of her being.

Her husband tries his best to understand, although her grown-up son thinks she's a little unhinged. Sometimes she wonders if he could be right… even for the others on the wraith forum it's obviously just fantasy, fun, make-believe. But not for her – for her Steve is real, tangible, she hears him in her head, sees his ethereal figure in the corridors of her workplace, she feels his presence beside her whenever she needs his reassurance.

He's taking over her life as surely as he is taking over her mind.

oOo

The missions the wraith give them to do can be dangerous, but fortunately few are lengthy since even the wraith do not want their spies to be discovered and killed by the other humans who resent them so much – good worshippers prepared to undertake such missions are few and far between.

She takes a huge risk on this mission by trying to talk to an innkeeper about the wraith battalion that visited this planet during the last culling. But the only reason she joined the corp in the first place is because it's the only way she can get off the hive and try to find him, so these are the risks she has to take.

So far she's been on five planets and has established a trail that she's certain will lead her to Steve, the wraith she still thinks of as hers. Now all she has to do is follow that trail – something she knows will be easier said than done.

oOo

"Goof grief, honey, I'd even rather it was another bloke – at least then I'd stand a chance!" her husband says, rolling his eyes in despair, "But how am I supposed to compete with a fictional alien?"

"You don't have to compete," she pleads. "That's the whole point – it's fantasy."

"No, it isn't," he tells her sadly. "Not any more."

She doesn't know what to say as she stands in the doorway of their bedroom and watches him throw clothes into a suitcase.

"You even drove Jimmy away!" he hurls at her.

"That's not fair!" she cries. "Jimmy's twenty-two and all grown up now – he had to get a job and leave home some time."

"But you helped him along… his mum and her embarrassing wraith obsession."

She shrugs; what can she say? She stands aside and lets him heave his case out into the hallway.

"I'll come back for the rest of my stuff on Monday, when you're at work," he says as he walks to the front door. He hesitates as if he's waiting for her to do or say something. She doesn't try to stop him.

Despondently he walks through the front door and out of her life.

She stands where she is for a moment, watching the space where he had stood. Then she turns and goes into the kitchen, makes herself a coffee, sits down at the counter and logs on to her laptop.

She finally she gives in to sleep at 3am, when she climbs into an empty bed and dreams of Steve.

oOo

When she finds the woman with the necklace she almost gives herself away in her excitement.

On the last planet someone told her they'd seen a woman wearing a necklace that had been made from parts cannibalized from several other items. The informant recognized at least one of the components as being wraith. When he described it to her she remembered it – and now that she's found it she can see for herself the centerpiece is the badge of office Steve always wore on the cuff of his coat.

"Where did you get this?" she demands. She holds the alarmed woman pinned up against the barn door.

"M-many places," the woman pleads.

Barb tears the necklace apart and holds Steve's badge up in front of the terrified woman's face. "This bit! Where did you get it?"

Barb puts herself in great peril to speak with the stallholder and demand he tell her where he got it; it brings too much attention to her and she fears whose focus it could alert.

oOo

"You're just not meeting your targets, Barbara, and it's not like it's just a few one-offs," her boss says firmly. "I've noticed you seem to be tired all the time, too… do you have personal problems?"

"Nothing I can't handle," she replies sullenly.

"Well, I don't really want to see your personal problems here, so I suggest you handle them before your next appraisal, or I'll have to let you go."

As it is, she doesn't make it as far as her next appraisal before her boss decides to "let her go". Not that she minds all that much, to be honest – it means she's free to spend all day on her laptop.

Her social security money just about gets her by – after all, she rarely eats and all she needs money for is endless coffee and a permanent Internet connection.

With so much more time on her hands she starts to really explore the 'net and before long she's engrossed in some pretty weird sites about space travel, wormholes and other dimensions.

oOo

"What are you up to?" the wraith growls in her face.

"I am conducting covert operations, as you have ordered me to do," Barb replies defiantly, trying to bluff her way out of her predicament.

"I do not remember telling you to go harassing stallholders for trinkets," the wraith office says, circling her menacingly. She says nothing. "What are you looking for?" he snarls and lunges at her, pinning her to the wall with his feeding hand on her chest. "You will tell me what you are doing if I have to drag it from you, year by agonizing year."

She knows she is close to finding Steve and that this wraith is about to rip it all from her. The wraith starts to feed, then reverses it, cycling through feeding and giving. She's heard that wraith can use this technique to break humans, but until now she never really understood how. She grits her teeth and wonders how what is effectively the same process can be so different from when Steve did it. With him it was comforting, an act of sharing, of intimacy.

But this wraith's hand is sending searing pain through her body, so intense she fears it will tear her apart. She must stop him somehow. She focuses all of her thoughts on Steve until she stills her mind enough to slide her hand surreptitiously around to her back. There she feels in her belt and finds what she'd hoped was still there.

She swings her arm round with all of her strength behind it and rams the viciously curved knife up and under the wraith's ribcage until the hilt jams against his sternum. She twists the handle sharply and feels the heat of his blood gush over her hand, telling her that she's pierced his heart.

"Heal that!" she snarls quietly in his ear, pushing him off her. She watches as he falls backward in apparent slow motion. With the knife still embedded deeply in his heart, he's dead before he even hits the ground.

oOo

The day the social worker knocks on her door is the day Barbara knows she has to do something. But it's not the something the authorities want her to do. Why can't they see how important this is?

They talk to her of "normal", but what's "normal" about feeling so out of place, of having to live her life in the wrong galaxy, knowing that she belongs somewhere else but not being able to get there?

They want her to "re-integrate" but she knows the time has come to flee. She sets the ball in motion quickly and prepares to drop off the radar before they have time to trap her in their dull little reality.

She spends even more time on the Internet, sleeping in small snatches as she puts her plans together. Then one day she finds something that promises to change her life forever: a site with instructions on how to build a portal to alternate universes.

oOo

She flees as fast as her feet will carry her, thoughts flashing through her mind at random. Even if she can find Steve, as a wraith-killer she'll never be able to be with him again. She plunges her arms up to the armpits in the freezing cold water of the well and washes the wraith's blood from her skin, frantically trying to decide what to do.

She could steal a dart, but she wouldn't get very far. She could try to hide among human populations, but they will always eventually find out what she's been and make her an outcast. The thought reminds her that she's never had much sympathy for her "fellow" humankind – indeed that's how she came to be Steve's worshipper in the first place.

She decides there's only one thing she can do – try to bluff her way out of it. She takes her courage in both hands and, against all her instincts, she turns and heads back to the wraith cruiser.

"Where is the Corps Commander?" the wraith officer demands as she runs full pelt toward the cruiser.

"He's dead!" she shouts. "The villagers discovered us! I barely escaped with my life! Please – we must leave immediately!"

The wraith grabs her roughly by the shoulders and stares deep into her eyes. She lets him sense the genuine fear hammering in her chest and he pushes her into the cruiser.

"Take off now!" he snaps his orders to his other officers. Then he turns to Barb and tells her, "The High Commander will be informed of this and he will decide what retaliation will be met upon the village."

oOo

She's becoming the recluse she always knew she was at heart. Several weeks ago she sold up everything she owned and moved out to the desert. With the money left over after buying the trailer she now lives in, she's stockpiled a whole yard full of weird equipment.

With her growing Internet savvy she's learnt how to drop out of society so she doesn't come to the attention of the authorities – she knows if that happens they'll probably section her and then she'd have no chance of ever finding Steve.

She works day and night, barely eating or sleeping, speaking to no one. She drives hundreds of miles to collect parts she orders from the various post box numbers she gets them delivered to so no one will find her.

She works like a madwoman, driven by a strange compulsion. When she does sleep, she dreams of Steve as she has done for months, but now her dreams are increasingly forceful, urgent, compellingly real. She knows he's out there somewhere and nothing now will convince her otherwise.

oOo

She takes a deep breath and steps into the Commander's office.

He's standing with his back to her, looking down at a palm pilot in his hand. The second the door closes he turns round and glowers at her.

"I know it was you. What do you have to say for yourself, human?" he demands.

She stands to attention in front of him, staring straight ahead and swallowing hard. Her face flushes scarlet and she feels like a trapped animal.

He sits at his desk and looks up at her. "Speak," he tells her. "Defend yourself."

She squeezes her eyes shut briefly, cursing herself. Nothing! It was all for nothing! Now she'll never see Steve again. She sighs deeply and replies, "I cannot. If you already know I killed your officer, it would be pointless to deny it."

"Indeed." Her gaze shifts briefly to his eyes and he sees a tiny flicker of hope there. "Why did you kill him?"

She looks back up and straight ahead. "Because he threatened to send me back to domestic hive duty."

"Ah, yes, and as I recall, being with another wraith would be a fate worse than death." He tosses the palm pilot across his desk. "What were you doing that made him threaten you?"

"He found out that… I mean I was…"

"I already know but I want to hear it from you, so spit it out, woman."

She looks down at him again as he leans toward her, his arms spread out to either side, hands resting on the edge of his desk. "I was trying to find him."

"And did you?"

"Yes…I mean, almost…"

"And my Corps Commander was in your way, so you got rid of him, hmm?" The High Commander leans back in his chair, arms still spread across his desk. "You put your own life at risk for him, you lie and cheat for him, you even kill for him…" a wry smile twitches at one corner of his mouth and she feels her heart beat loudly in her throat. "I hope he appreciates how lucky he is to have a worshipper of your caliber."

As he stands up she holds her breath, barely able to believe what she thinks might be happening.

He smiles broadly and adds, "You have earned the right, human."

She continues to stand to attention as he walks around his desk. "I have transferred him back to this ship. He is waiting for you now – you may go to him."

Her relief is so great she slumps forward and lets out a small, sharp choking sound. Then she takes a step toward him, all her instincts making her want to hug him. He chuckles and looks at her as if he were indulging a favourite pet. She snaps back to attention and garbles, "Thank you, Sir! I mean, High Commander, I mean – thank you!"

"Dismissed," he says, still chuckling and walking back behind his desk.

Unable to control her joy any longer she turns and runs from the room as if her feet had wings.

oOo

She sits and looks at it: a gleaming mish-mash of cables and metal, jerried up as best she can. There's no way for her to test it to see if it really works. She's chased rabbits and rodents through the ring of the portal and, sure enough, they've disappeared… but where to?

There's only one real way to know for sure and that's for her to step through the ring herself, but she'd be stepping into the complete unknown – literally – with no way of knowing where she'd end up on the other side, or even if there is an "other side" at all.

Just as she's wondering if she's brave enough, she sees him; the smoky, misty figure of Steve appears from behind her trailer, shifting and drifting as he walks straight through the portal without hesitation.

For him she'll find the courage. She stands up, takes a deep breath and steps into the portal.

oOo

She comes out the other side at a run. She can swear she sees a woman directly in front of her and squeezes her eyes shut, bracing herself for the impact that seems inevitable. She feels the jolt of contact and misses her footing, staggering one or two steps, but the woman she expects to have to apologize to for bumping into her is nowhere to be seen.

As she rights herself, she looks around and instantly recognizes her surroundings: she's on a wraith hive – she did it!

_Did what?_ She hears the voice inside her head – her own voice. She looks down at herself as if expecting to see someone else's body, but sees only her own… only… she's wearing different clothes. Where are her jeans?

_Jeans? What are jeans?_ she asks herself. Why is she talking to herself inside her head and why is she asking herself such weird questions?

She looks down at herself again and realizes she has something in her hand – she opens it and sees a beautifully wrought silver badge in the palm of her hand.

_It's Steve's_, her own voice in her head says.

_You know him?_ she asks herself.

_Know him? He's my whole life!_

She stands alone in the middle of a corridor on a wraith hive and smiles. Two minds in one body; both minds somehow her. What does she do now?

_Stop messing around and go to Steve, that's what we do!_

_You know where he is?_

_Follow me!_

Her body takes off down the corridor and she realizes she knows where she's going. She comes to a doorway and stops. The door opens and a wraith stands in the room, his back turned to her. She doesn't need to see his face to know it's him. He turns slowly to face her as she stands there, the silver badge sitting in her open hand.

"I lost that during a cull weeks ago," he says when he sees it. He walks toward her and she knows it's not the run here that's making her breath come in short little gasps. He reaches out and takes her hand, drawing her into the room.

_Are you still there?_ She asks herself in her mind.

_I wouldn't miss this for the world, Sis! Isn't he just beautiful? Gods, I missed him!_

_This is the first time I've… is this really happening?_

_You never met him before in your universe?_

_No, I just knew I had to try to find him somehow… who are you?_

_Name's Barb, I'm Steve's worshipper._

_I'm Barbara… I'm…_

_An AU me, I reckon, though somehow we've gotten trapped together in my body._

Barbara tears her eyes away from Steve's and looks down at herself briefly. _Yours is better than mine_, she tells herself.

_Well, it looks like we have the same agenda, so I reckon we can live with it for now – I'll share him with you, Sis!_

_I wonder how many other AU me's are out there, looking for their Steves?_

_Well, I'm not sharing him with ALL of them!_ She tells herself. _Now get on with it and show him how much we missed him!_

Her senses are in overdrive as she snakes her arms up and around Steve's neck, feeling his soft hair brush over her arms and the sweet, spicy scent of him fill her nostrils. She's so happy she could cry as she rests her head on his chest and revels in the feel of his arms tightening around her.

"I missed you too," he whispers into her hair and she knows her soul has found its home.


End file.
